1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method of forming a pattern on a semiconductor or glass substrate. More particularly, the invention relates to a pattern forming method and apparatus suitable to form a pattern using a liquid pattern forming material, and a device fabrication method and device.
2. Description of Related Art
In the fabrication of an electronic device for a semiconductor apparatus or a liquid crystal panel, a related art pattern formation is carried out as follows. In a case where a wiring pattern is formed, for example, a semiconductor or glass substrate is first immersed in a cleaning vessel to clean substrate entirely and to remove organic or inorganic contaminants adhered to surfaces of the substrate. Then, the substrate is rinsed with a rinsing fluid such as pure water, and then dried. Subsequently, the substrate thus cleaned and dried is conveyed into a vacuum chamber of a film forming apparatus, where a metal film 12 is deposited on a surface of a substrate 10 by CVD or sputtering, as shown in FIG. 6-1. A photoresist is applied to the overall surface of the metal film 12 and dried so as to form a resist film 14.
Next, the resist film 14 is subjected to light irradiation and development by photolithography, so that the resist film 14 is left only on an area to define the wiring pattern, while the metal film 12 is exposed on an area where the wiring pattern is not formed (see FIG. 6-2). Subsequently, the substrate 10 is conveyed into a plasma etching apparatus wherein the metal film 12 is etched away using the resist film 14 as mask, thereby selectively removing the exposed metal film 12 to leave the metal film 12 only beneath the resist film 14, as shown in FIG. 6-3. The resist film 14 is removed by stripping by way of vacuum oxygen plasma thereby to obtain a wiring pattern 16 made of the metal film 12 as shown in FIG. 20-4.